From Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (p. 17).
In early 1938, Adolf Hitler, by then securely in power in Germany, was threatening to annex neighboring Austria. After the Austrian chancellor conceded, it was the Austrians’ anticipatory obedience that decided the fate of Austrian Jews. Local Austrian Nazis captured Jews and forced them to scrub the streets to remove symbols of independent Austria. Crucially, people who were not Nazis looked on with interest and amusement. Nazis who had kept lists of Jewish property stole what they could. Crucially, others who were not Nazis joined in the theft. As the political theorist Hannah Arendt remembered, “when German troops invaded the country and Gentile neighbors started riots at Jewish homes, Austrian Jews began to commit suicide.”
This is just one of the examples Snyder provides. I’m sure that some of those Austrians were in awe of Hitler or excited to join Germany, but not all. Some may have been out for what they could get; others were excited to have an excuse to steal what they wanted or to mistreat people they already hated. Some may be simply tried to “sit it out”.
To quote everyone’s mother, “If everyone else jumped off a bridge….”
It’s OK to be skeptical about jumping off the bridge. It’s OK to question or second-guess what you’re told to do, especially if it’s something completely new.
Many January 6 participants said, on camera, “The President invited us” to the Capitol. I thought at the time, “The President doesn’t run the Capitol building, Congress does. There’s a reason that the President is invited to the Capitol every year for the annual State of the Union address – the President is a guest.”
The more obvious response, of course, is “That doesn’t make breaking in legal or moral.”
Logic is your friend.
Living ~400lbs 